


Depth

by sugarspuncoeurls



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Beginnings, Comfort/Angst, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 10:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13832094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarspuncoeurls/pseuds/sugarspuncoeurls
Summary: If the halls are equivalent to a sea’s shallows, the bridge is an ocean’s deep, dark blue on darker.In which Shiro seeks something, and finds someone seeking the same. Or: the Black Paladin and the princess meet...again.





	Depth

**Author's Note:**

> I've been invested in VLD way too long to not have written my own fic til now, but at least I can say my first official trek is just in time for Shiro's kinda-birthday ;) We're going all the way back to the beginning for this one. Hope y'all enjoy; feedback is welcome and appreciated!

He didn’t think he had much naiveté left. At thirteen, he clung to his parents’ shoulders as they shared see-you-soon’s in the center of the Galaxy Garrison’s entrance hall. That first night in his new bunk, he thought about the sky he used to study from his window and longed for the lens of his sticker-tatted telescope and the cheap green-glow stars stuck to his bedroom ceiling back home.

Of course they knew. In the side pocket of his carry-on, he found a pack of those stars and a message from his mother. _Keep shooting._ He stuck the molds to the bottom of the top bunk under which he slept, and went to sleep with the feeling that home was a little bit closer.

Those stars remained until he graduated, little points of light to guide his hand through messages to family and friends, to provide company through late-night workouts on the floor. By the time he received his first official badge, they still glowed a dull green, brightest when the darkness was deep enough.

He almost took some on the mission to Kerberos, for old times’ sake, as a childish symbol of good luck. Bought a packet and ultimately left them in his desk drawer, with plans to give them away to some new homesick recruit maybe, after they returned to Earth.

He could’ve used some, he thinks now with a wry smile, during his… _time_ with the Galra. The ones in his old bunk, maybe; deep as that darkness had been, they would’ve glowed good as new, and maybe made that seemingly endless night a little shorter.

At least _this_ ship isn’t lacking for light. As he traverses yet another hallway, it follows his footsteps as much as it guides them, subtle as it bounces off the metal walls and floor in hues he’s only ever seen in sea shallows. It’s comforting, in its own small way, a gift he didn’t think he’d need at this age, as he is now. Nevertheless, he can’t deny the admittedly fragile calm that overtakes him as he goes from hall to hall, past door after door, and never encounters a corner dark enough for his mind to manipulate.

Perhaps that small boy in him hasn’t left entirely. He still follows the light patterns on the floor, after all, the length of his strides altering to find them, catch them beneath his boot as if they might scurry away. He still finds curiosity taking hold with each chamber he passes, flesh fingers itching to press against a door in the hopes it’ll open and reveal.

And when he finds himself inadvertently entering the castle-ship’s bridge (and he feels a residual stir of excitement at the idea. A real _castle_ , just like in the fairytales Ma sometimes read to him), his heart still _tut-tut_ -tutters a rhythm of wonder against his ribcage as he catches sight of the one thing his ten, sixteen, twenty-one-year-old self _knew_ to be true, long before the evidence ever presented itself.

He pauses just inside the huge, arching threshold, quiet but not quiet enough. With a sharp whip of her head, the extraterrestrial princess to his newly-christened Paladin captures his gaze and holds it.

“Sir Shirogane?” she asks, her head tilting, voice lilting, growing already familiar to his eyes and ears.

“Princess…” he murmurs. _Allura_ , his memory supplies. He starts and finally comprehends his whereabouts, glances down the hall from which he came. “Uh, wow. Didn’t realize I’d come this far.” He turns back, eyes catching on the high ceiling, windows looking out to the foreign world beyond. He shrugs, trying for a sheepish smile. “Sorry for the surprise.”

“Oh, that’s alright.” Princess Allura smiles, her stance (protective, obviously born of practice, he can’t help but notice) relaxing with the lift of her brows. “A bit of a start, is all it was. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be awake at this time.”

“Same here.” Stuffing down a mild case of curiosity, Shiro meets her smile with a small one of his own, and prepares himself to return to the halls. “I’ll, uh…leave you to your business, then.”

“Oh, it wasn’t business.” Her words make him pause. With a rustle of her gown, the princess turns and takes a step away from her pilot’s stand. “Well, no _urgent_ business. Just some simple maintenance.”

“Oh,” he echoes. He still preps himself to leave. “Well, I still don’t want to get in your way. I’ll just–”

“Sir Shirogane, you’re fine,” she interrupts, firm yet polite as she smiles again. “You’re not intruding,” she continues. “This room – as well as all within the castle’s perimeter – are yours to peruse as you and the other Paladins wish.” Her smile widens. “You are welcome here.”

 _Certainly more welcome than you were last time you chanced upon an alien ship_ , a part of him thinks absently, half-amusedly. “Uh…thank you, Princess.”

Maybe the halls can wait a few minutes.

Still a touch self-conscious, he steps past the threshold and onto the bridge, steps seeming louder somehow, perhaps in comparison to the princess’ barely-heard tread. He hesitates, unsure where, exactly, to go, before he settles against the Black Paladin’s – _his_ – designated bridge seat. “So, you said you were doing maintenance?” A perhaps poor topic of conversation. How does one make small talk with royalty?

“Yes,” the princess answers easily, returning to her stand; settling against the side of his seat, he watches as her fingers fly over the holograph. “Mostly tests of internal systems.” She surprises him with a half-teasing grin. “Well, the quiet ones, anyway.”

He chuckles. “It _is_ pretty late, isn’t it?”

“Far later than I assumed. I imagine morning’s not far off.” With a final swipe of her palm, she steps back once more from her stand, her blue gaze curious. “Which begs the question, Sir Shirogane: what has brought you here so late in the cycle? I imagine the past _quintant_ has been quite trying for you all.”

“Understatement, Princess,” Shiro says with a humored smile; he overlooks the strange term she uses. “But we’re managing.”

The princess’ brows lift. “Do humans not need as much recuperation after a significant loss of energy?”

He blinks. “Uh, no, we need it.” He shifts slightly. “Some more than others.” With a slightly self-deprecating smirk and shrug, he looks out the large, arcing windows. “I guess I’m ‘others’.”

“I see.” He thinks she doesn’t; he’s not entirely sure himself, after all. Too much to process, too many thoughts that, with too much introspection, could lead to feelings and images and _memories_ he’s just not prepared to face. Not yet.

Silence, almost pregnant, if he thinks about their shared space too much. If the halls are equivalent to a sea’s shallows, the bridge is an ocean’s deep, dark blue on darker. He remembers the star map illuminating it like a thousand bioluminescent little creatures, like a thousand of his tacky star stickers, all so seemingly inconsequential.

_And now they represent everything my – **our** lives have become._

It’s almost a relief that the only stars he sees now are those beyond the bridge’s massive glass panes. They shimmer on the like-silk of the princess’ gown as she moves, and that’s when he decides to say something. “Princess?”

She looks to him with a simple smile. “Yes?”

“Where did you learn my last name?”

The princess blinks in surprise, momentarily lost with the sudden subject change before his question seems to click. “Oh! The other Paladins told me. They enlightened me as to your reputable station on Earth. As a well-ranked member of your ‘Galaxy Garrison’, it was only appropriate that proper respects be paid.” Her smile turns slightly sheepish as she offers him a small incline of her head. “I do hope that our previous interactions were not cause for offense. I can assure you, from here on, that such oversights will not occur.”

He wants to laugh. Or sigh. Or roll his eyes. Maybe even channel his seniority and scold his fellow Earthlings for what they obviously considered to be quite the gag.

He does half. A breathy chuckle as he shakes his head and smiles at the young woman watching him so curiously. “Sir Shirogane?” she inquires, and he smiles wider.

“It’s just Shiro, Your Highness.”

The princess blinks. “I beg your pardon?”

Somehow, he’s thinking that _this_ – clearing up misunderstandings, both intentional and not, between these so different parties –  will quickly become a _thing_ for him to do. “The others were…” he pauses, weighing his options, “ _accurate_ enough about my position in the Garrison. It was one I took great pride in, and on Earth, it might even still hold weight. But…”

He pauses again, and recalls, once more, those thousand small solar systems. “Out here, amidst all this, it isn’t so important.” ‘Paladin’ is far more important, these days, than ‘pilot’.

“Perhaps,” the princess says, and for an impossible second or tick or whatever, he thinks he maybe spoke his thoughts aloud. Can (could) the Alteans read minds, sense brainwaves and interpret the emotions behind them? Farfetched as it sounds, he’s already had his mind blown at least four times today. Once more really wouldn’t be all that strange. He’s still wondering when she continues. “Regardless, however, I would still seek to learn. Is there a title – or name by which you would feel most comfortable in our referring to you?”

“Shiro,” he repeats immediately. Protocol is nice, when simplicity and efficiency is needed, and if she insists (he’s starting to think she seems the type, when she feels it’s necessary), he knows he’ll adapt to the sudden surge of ‘Sirs’, ‘Shiroganes’, and ‘Black Paladins’ that come his way. But he’s always been the casual sort; a nickname does the job as well as any title, and if he has the privilege to choose, he chooses the former.

The princess blinks. “I see. As the other Paladins call you?” He nods.

“It’s simpler than anything else. It’s my preference, at least.”

She only hesitates another moment before nodding. “Very well. ‘Sir Shiro’, it is, then.”

He chuckles again, a solid sound that echoes in the space between them. In hindsight, it surprises him. “Just ‘Shiro’, Princess, if you would. No formality needed.”

“Oh,” she says, eyebrows lifting again, higher. “My apologies. _Exactly_ as the other Paladins call you, then.”

He smiles, his shoulders lifting in a shrug. “We’re all in this together, after all.”

The smile she returns is somewhat bittersweet. “That, we are.” A companionably silent moment, and then a chime, like the tinkling of bells. “Ah,” the princess sounds, and with a wave of her hand, regains access to the ship’s systems. “Diagnostics are complete.”

“Fast,” he replies, for lack of anything better to say. It doesn’t bother him so much this time.

“Yes,” she agrees, and perhaps it’s the acoustics of the room but the word to him sounds...off. He can’t help but recognize something in it, an echo of inflection he usually hears in his own voice, not often in another’s. And he realizes…

He wasn’t the only one seeking distraction tonight. Maybe the princess _does_ see, after all.

“Well,” she announces, before he can say…what? “I suppose the rest can wait ‘til later. I’ll need Coran’s assistance, anyway, and he’ll be as cross as a _kard’iel_ if I try to wake him now.” She makes a gesture, a tapping and swiping of fingers, and something in the belly of the ship seems to quiet. “I suppose it would be prudent for the two of us to achieve _some_ form of rest, hm?”

He nods with a small chuckle around the clench of his gut. She’s right, of course. It would do little good for either of them to continue forgoing sleep now, only to be the weak links come tomorrow, when so much of this will finally solidify into reality, when guides will be needed to navigate through this encompassing blue. He rises from his seat, his hand running along the smooth metal as he goes, and follows the princess as she retreats from the bridge to the hallway. “Well, um…good night, Princess.” He looks to her, small smile still etched across his mouth. She returns it with a small incline of her head.

“Thank you for your company tonight.” She lifts her head, and her smile makes his own widen. “However unexpected, it was appreciated.” She lifts her hand into a small wave. “Rest well.”

“You, too.” He doesn’t get a chance to stumble through a ‘thank you’ of his own; with a final parting smile, she turns her back and departs, her steps as light and even as they were on the bridge.

He _is_ thankful, though. It’s become so normal for him to spend his restless hours alone; he even prefers it that way, if only because it means he’s maybe the only one experiencing them. It was nice to have company, if only this one time, and he basks in the feeling until the guilt and doubt ( _you shouldn’t have bothered her, you should’ve tried harder to sleep, you’re just a soldier, you had no **business** taking up the time of someone so important_ ) inevitably begin to gnaw at his bones. Before they overwhelm him, out of a little more of the same cautious curiosity that led him here, he tosses a glance over his shoulder.

Earlier that ‘evening’, as they all departed for their new respective quarters, he remembers Coran insisting on escorting the princess to hers. If he recalls correctly, the path would require she turn down another incoming hallway.

Shiro watches as she bypasses it entirely, her steps purposeful. He sighs silently, and returns to his own path in the opposite direction.

It’s just as well. If she were paying attention, she’d have noticed him missing his own junction.

His resumed journey eventually brings him to the combat arena. With a bit of fumbling at the controls, the activation of his arm, heat and artificial life awakening with a hum, he sets the course for the remainder of his night.

Only one thing manages to grab his attention beyond the pull of adrenaline and the push of his opponent. The information listed on the holographic screen that chimes into being with his first victory. Script that must be Altean, and script he recognizes, a title.

_Sir Shirogane._

He doesn’t deserve it; not the title, nor the standing that clearly comes with it. But he has to admit, however wryly, that from her, the princess – Princess Allura of planet Altea, pilot of the castle-ship that houses the universe’s greatest defense…it certainly does sound impressive.


End file.
